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UK – A perfect storm for workers, says Adzuna

30 March 2015

February saw the largest annual increase in advertised salaries since the recession, driven by growing pay packets for Britain’s teachers and healthcare professionals, according to the latest UK Job Market Report from Adzuna.co.uk.

At £34,627, advertised wages were 8.1% higher than the £32,023 registered in February last year – the largest annual growth since the financial crisis. Adjusted for CPI inflation, this translates to a £2,605 real wage increase. On a monthly basis, the average advertised salary showed a small 0.1% improvement.

Advertised vacancies neared the million-mark in February, with 992,465 positions available, a 24% increase on February 2014.

February also brought the largest month-on-month increase for 11 months with a 4.2% boost from January’s unexpectedly lacklustre 952,829 positions.

The delayed vacancy boom has beaten back job competition. This February saw just 0.86 jobseekers per advertised vacancy, compared to 0.90 in January and 1.55 in February 2014.

The Adzuna Unemployment Predictor shows that UK unemployment is due to hit 5.5% in March, down from 5.7% in January (the last official update from the ONS). The model also suggests that unemployment will have fallen even further to 5.1% by June 2015.

Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, commented: “For the first time in a long while, British workers are having their cake and eating it too. The jobs market has fought through some very tough economic times and emerged stronger for it. Job competition is down, CPI inflation has fallen, and advertised wages are rising. The facts are plain. UK jobseekers have an enormous range of options, and once they secure employment, their potential pay-packets are far higher than last year, with February’s rate of vacancy growth hitting post-recession peaks. Not only this, but low inflation is pushing pay packets even further.”

“It’s a perfect storm for UK workers. It’s entirely possible that pre-election jitters might have had a negative impact on the jobs market, but all the key indicators are heading in the right direction. Whichever group comes into power is going to have to be careful not to stifle this newly found sense of optimism. It’s been a long time coming,” he added.

Teaching and Healthcare & Nursing jobs both take up hard-earned positions in the top three sectors by annual salary improvement. Teaching jobs lead the way with a remarkable 26% increase in advertised pay packets compared to February last year, bringing their average advertised salary to £26,651. Healthcare & Nursing positions also saw a formidable pay jump, with a 21.7% year-on-year boost bringing the sector’s average advertised salary to £37,873.

Mr Hunter comments: “In the Healthcare & Nursing sector, the NHS has been struggling with understaffing for some time, developing a dependence on agency nurses which will prove difficult to break without managing to attract – and keep – full-time nurses on hospital payrolls. Meanwhile, doctors and surgeons at the top of the tree have seen generous salary boosts. Healthcare workers will be hoping these pay increases trickle down through the system and into their own pay-packets.”

The regions the Budget seeks to help are already among the best for job-hunters. The Budget saw local support for Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, Greater Manchester, and Cheshire East, with these regions being allowed to keep 100% of local business rates from shops and restaurants – but Cambridge and Manchester are already in the top ten best places in the UK to find jobs.

There are just 0.11 jobseekers per vacancy in Cambridge and 0.40 in Manchester. The worst places to find a job in February were Sunderland (5.33), Hull (4.88), and Bradford (4.36).